Plucked Hair Labelling

Epistem has developed an innovative, non-invasive plucked hair biomarker platform that measures target changes (pharmacodynamic response), including phosphorylated proteins, within a single plucked human hair.  Hairs are ideal surrogates for the measurement of direct response to drug treatment for biomarker studies.  Highly sensitive to therapeutic agents, hairs respond to drug treatment within hours of exposure.  Collection is also minimally invasive, with few ethical issues, permitting repeat sampling from subjects over the duration of a clinical study. 

Immunohistochemistry

Hairs are collected, fixed and then shipped to Epistem for processing.   For proof of concept studies, Epistem can arrange for hair collection on behalf of the Sponsor. Hairs are then either wax embedded and sectioned, or processed as whole mounts.  For each antigen, antibody labelling protocols are optimised, with inter- and intra- donor variability and antigen stability post-collection determined.  Epistem's scientists will advise on the suitability of labelling whole mount hairs versus longitudinal sections, depending on antigen location.